Historically, local area networks (LAN) have run on Ethernet while storage area networks often run on Fibre Channel (FC). As Ethernet moves to faster and faster speeds (100 and 400+GB), the two network standards begin to see convergence. Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) allows transmission of Fibre Channel (FC) protocols over an Ethernet structure. FCoE encapsulates FC frames to send them over Ethernet networks while preserving the original FC protocol.
The movement to FCoE can be desirable, particularly in data centers and storage networks (SAN) due to a reduction in cost in cabling, for example. FCoE may allow the use of existing hardware and infrastructure for the transmission of encapsulated FC packets. FC for storage networks, storage data, and other sensitive data, such as I/O operation packets, generally operates in a low latency, high bandwidth, and loss-less networks. Unlike FC, classical Ethernet has no flow control. To effectively execute FCoE for loss-less FC packets, FCoE needs enhanced routing capabilities and standard development to provide a loss-less environment for FCoE that prevents the dropping of Ethernet frames.
Additionally, there is a movement to virtualization for increased hardware utilization. The use of large distributed or clustered computing networks, as can be provided in cloud applications, cloud networks, or “clouds”, has driven technologies such as overlay networks. An overlay network is a network which is built on top of another network. Overlay networks like Virtual extendable Local Area Networks (VxLAN) or Network Virtualization using Generic Routing Encapsulation (NVGRE); for example, have developed in response to an increased use of Virtual Local Area Networks (VLANs) which are limited to 12 bit layer 2 networks or 4094 VLAN networks. This number of VLANs may be too limiting for large data centers or cloud computing where tenants could be identified by their own VLAN. In response, overlaying virtualized networks, like VxLAN, as virtualized Layer 2 networks over Layer 3 networks allows the stretching of Layer 2 networks for highly virtualized environments. Overlay technologies like VxLAN expand the virtual LAN address space by adding a 24 bit segment ID. The addition of the 24 bit segment ID increases the number of available networks to approximately 16 million.